Remember Knox? Well, actually her name is now Maddox. She was brought by someone to Anti-Cruelty Society, ACS. ACS brought her to Chicago Animal Care and Control, CACC, where her paperwork was filled out as “per ACS, feral not able to touch, will bite.” Because she was assessed as being feral, she was scheduled to be killed. When I visited CACC, their amazing volunteer group, the CACC Cat Transfer Team, showed me Maddox. The original plan was to TNRelocate her into a caretaker’s backyard.

Maddox is now officially being fostered by her rescuer caretaker. She was admitted into Tree House Humane Society’s “foster to the floor” program, where the foster pet parent cares for the cat and takes her to Tree House’s clinic for scheduled medical care until there is room in their shelter. It’s an amazing program that helps get these cats off the street and makes sure they are healthy while easing them back into indoor life.

Maddox gets along with other cats and seems to understand that she has been given a second chance. Please contact Tree House if you are interested in adopting her.

Good morning from the James’ Gang Colony cats in my yard! I found Dice and Honey Bouncy Bear doing just fine in the colder weather. They were snuggling in the cat house, but they came right out for breakfast.

This eartipped cat posed perfectly at the end of a garden path during my morning run.

She was visiting the Jose and the Pussycats Colony even though she was not TNR’ed there. I don’t really recognize her, but I recognize the eartip, which is the universal sign that this cat has been TNR’ed and I don’t have to chase after her anymore.

In December I transferred five cats classified as feral from Chicago Animal Care and Control, CACC. The plan was to spay and neuter/vaccinate/eartip/microchip them and return them back to their original locations where they came from. Otherwise, because they were classified as feral and considered unadoptable, they would have eventually been killed. Tree House Humane Society covered all of their TNR medical expenses, and one of their long-term volunteers and cat colony caretakers came with me to do the transfer. Four of the five cats were successfully returned back outside to their original locations after recovering from their medical procedures.

This caretaker was relocating the fifth cat into her yard, because this cat originally came from a very busy intersection. The caretaker lives close to this intersection, so we thought this relocation would work quite well.

It worked out even better than we thought. This cat, named Knox, has stayed in her yard for a month now, and was quite vocal the entire time. Knox trained her new caretaker to feed her multiple times a day, and showed other friendly tendencies. Perhaps Knox was never feral at all, just cautious in CACC’s facility. Once she felt safer, she started to show signs that she was friendly. Here is Knox inside for now.

Today I went to an open house for animal rescue groups at Chicago Animal Care and Control. It was a chance for all the groups to meet while discussing their plans moving forward to reducing the number of animals killed in shelters in Chicago.

All areas of rescue, from foster organizations to adoptions to shelters to trap-neuter-return to cat colony caretakers, were given credit in helping the overall kill rates to decrease. Rochelle Michalek, PAWS Chicago’s executive director, explained the statistics in how their shelter is helping to get the number of animals saved to increase every year.

How’s that for Cat Math? That number is HUGE. It shows that A LOT of people are out there doing TNR because they know it’s the most humane and effective method of controlling the outdoor cat overpopulation.

Then Dr. Richard Brown, CACC’s new supervising veterinarian, threw out some more numbers. He wants CACC to reduce their kill rate another 10% this year. And then he wants CACC, an intake shelter, to be no-kill by 2015.

I am inspired. I met a lot of great people today who care greatly.

And I won the gift box from the Open House’s raffle! I didn’t even put my name in the hat – Erin from Lulu’s Locker Rescue threw it in there without me knowing about it. It’s filled with dog treats, cat toys and other very important supplies for feral cat colony caretakers such was wine, beer, chocolate, cookies and candy.

I’m sharing the treats with some of my community’s feral cat caretakers. And Mooha.

Mini is the only cat in my yard that made it into my home, and joined my other two cats, Mowpa and Mooha. She started coming around in 2005 where I fed her outside for six months before she decided she wanted to come inside. My initial intention was to adopt her out, but she didn’t agree. Here she is doing one of her favorite things. This video was filmed, edited and scored by Caffeinated Recordings.

Every year, the temperatures drop after the holidays, along with my mood. I’m not a fan of winter. But my mood picked up when I saw the James’ Gang Colony cats in my yard lounging all morning, looking totally comfortable in their environment.

These particular cats in my yard have been around for a few winters now. I started this blog to show people that a feral cat can live a long life outdoors, because that is what they know and prefer. Yes, they get help from me, but they were also surviving before that. I trap-neuter-return TNR a feral cat colony because I don’t think cats should be outdoors and I don’t want more of them, but the ones who are already out there deserve to live out their lives.

I’m happy to provide extra comforts to the feral and stray cats in my yard, and I encourage all of the cat colony caretakers that I work with to do the same. Once a feral or stray cat is spayed/neutered, they will start sticking around more because they are no longer roaming and looking for a mate.

A few years ago I bought a heated water bowl for them. I actually bought the one in the second picture of that link.

I didn’t really ever see any of the stray cats or feral cats using it and kind of shrugged off my purchase. Until this morning, when I saw Dice drinking from it, while Springy Funny Face and Bouncy Honey Bear dined together.

This is the fifth winter that I’m caring for Dice now since his TNR surgery at the Anti-Cruelty Society on January 26th, 2009. He was pretty upset in the trap and hit his face trying to get out, but he’s come a long way since. He seems to enjoy the extra comforts I put out for the cats in my yard the most.